First Show in InWorldz: Equinox (05.21.11)

Zak Claxton in Second Life (left), real life (center) and Inworldz (right). It would be nice if our virtual selves were more transferrable between an ever-increasing number of virtual worlds.

It's been well over four years since I did my first show in a virtual world. Kat and I joined SL in October 2006, and it wasn't long afterward that I first put on a pixel guitar and started entertaining the virtual masses with my music. Today, for the first time since that moment, I got to enter a new virtual world and play for a whole new crowd, this time in InWorldz.

InWorldz probably looks pretty familiar to anyone who has been in SL; it obviously operates on the same platform, but runs the basic SL interface on a private set of servers apart from Linden Lab. In any case, I didn't know this until Talia Fournier got in touch with me on Facebook, having listened to my tunes, and asked if I wanted to play at her place. I thought it was high time I tried out a virtual world beyond SL, and more importantly, it sounded fun. So I accepted, and we set today as a date to perform.

If anything, my IW avvie probably resembles the RLL me even more than my SL self, oddly.

Days of Noob Revisited
It had been since 2006 since I found myself a stranger in a strange land, with nothing but the noobie clothes on my back. Luckily, registering for InWorldz is easy, and they have a nice welcome area where you can pick up your first set of freebie clothes and such. As a musician, I needed a couple of things (like a guitar, duh), so I explored around InWorldz a bit, getting myself set up for my show.

The process, though simple, made me all the more aware of how nice it would be if one's virtual self was a bit more integrated across the digital universe. Don't get me wrong; it was sort of fun setting up a new avatar for myself (I hardly ever touch my avvie in SL), but it would definitely encourage more inter-world traffic and economic growth were traveling to a different world as simple as teleporting there, with one's inventory intact. Obviously, the current systems of exclusive server-side assets wouldn't allow it for the time being, but I can dream, right?

InWorldz is the same as SL in every basic way, except they have their own currency, the I'z. I'm such a noob, I don't know if this is pronounced "eyez" or "izz-es" or what, but unlike the market-value fluctuation of the SL L$, they're set at $500 I'z per $1USD, making it very easy to keep in mind their actual value.

But enough on InWorldz; you can get the basic info anywhere. Let's talk about my first-ever show there!

Keep on Rocking in the InWorldz
Talia Fournier's music venue, The Lodge @ Equinox, is a nice build reminiscent of many of the better SL places I've played. We had a nice-sized and appreciative crowd there. One nice thing about being in InWorldz is that with such a smaller population, there's not nearly as many events competing against each other. It's more like SL was a number of years ago in that aspect. I may have been the only live music performer on the IW grid today, so visitors seemed glad to have me there. Felt nice.

The show itself went fine. I split up my repertoire between originals and covers, and the crowd seemed to dig what I was playing, so no complaints there. I'll definitely be finding some more shows to do in InWorldz soon.

My crowd at Equinox. I may have been the only person rocking this new grid at the time of my show!

Bringing the Zak Rock to a whole new world...

Equinox (IW) Set list
Heart of Gold (Neil Young)
Ziggy Stardust (David Bowie)
Falling Down (Zak Claxton)
Tea in the Sahara (The Police)
Broken Day (Zak Claxton)
If You Could Only See (Tonic)
Lines on Your Eyes (Zak Claxton)
Fire & Rain (James Taylor)
Always Tomorrow (Zak Claxton)
Things behind the Sun (Nick Drake)
Shine (Zak Claxton)
Lola (The Kinks)

All songs, obviously, performed for the first time in InWorldz.

Huge thanks to all who joined me at my very first show InWorldz! There will be more! Thanks for your support...
Leanna Caerndow, Drakon Cortes, Diana Renoir, Teal Freenote, Triana Caldera, Katie Hawksby, Anna Loom, Roxanne Marksman, David West, Beth Welles, Mera Kranfel, Kat Claxton, and especially today's host, Talia Fournier!